One of the rituals anyone who becomes a truly serious Presidential candidate must go through is increased scrutiny. That usually comes in stages, starting with interviews with mainstream news groups that are unlike interviews on ideological cable networks: reporters and editors ask questions and will be doggedly determined to ask follow ups and virtually demand specificity. The second scrutiny comes if they get a nomination, and then what they went through during the nomination campaign in retrospect begings to look like summer camp at the beach. It gets much tougher. And rougher.

Bernie Sanders had an old school style journalism interview with the New York Daily News and by most accounts (except those of some Sanders supporters) it didn’t go well. In fact, most accounts say it was at best a fizzle, at worst a flop. Here’s some of what The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote:

Bernie Sanders sat down with the New York Daily News editorial board last Friday, seeking its endorsement in the upcoming April 19 Empire State primary. It did not go well for the senator from Vermont.

Time and again, when pressed to get beyond his rhetoric on the evils of corporate America and Wall Street, Sanders struggled. Often mightily. (The Daily News published the full transcript of the interview today so you can check it out for yourself.)

Yes, do read it yourself. More of Cillizza:

For Sanders’s critics — including Hillary Clinton — the Daily News interview is the “ah ha!” moment that they have been insisting will come for Sanders, a time when his pie-in-the-sky proposals are closely examined and found wanting. Sure, free college tuition sounds good, but how, exactly, do you pay for it? And, yes, breaking up the biggest banks seems appealing — particularly if you saw “The Big Short” — but (a) can you actually do it? and (b) what does it mean for all the people those banks employ?
And:
A large part of Sanders’s appeal to the throngs who back him is his insistence that we are in need of a political revolution. And, for those people, the Daily News interview will be much ado about nothing. But what the interview exposes is that once the revolution happens there will be lots of loose ends to tie up. Loose ends that Sanders either hasn’t grappled with — or doesn’t want to.

Remember that Sanders’s campaign began as the longest of long shots. He could propose the world and more because no one thought that he ever had a chance at winning. I could tell you 100 radical changes I would make to the NBA if I were commissioner — raise the age limit to 21, move the three-point line back, etc. — but I would never have to really explain how I was going to do it because you would know there’s a zero percent chance I am going to run the NBA. But if suddenly my name started to pop up on lists to replace Adam Silver — please please please let this happen — then a more careful examination of how I was going to accomplish all of my proposals would be in order.

The Daily News interview amounts to a moment of reckoning for Sanders. Okay, let’s say you get elected — now what? And have you thought through what it might mean to the American worker and the American economy if all of the things you insist have to happen actually did happen? Judging by Sanders’s responses, he hasn’t.

KTLA:

The Vermont senator’s April 1 sit down with the paper’s editorial board, a transcript of which was published Monday afternoon, showed him having difficulty clearly answering some questions about both foreign and domestic policy, including the implementation of his much-touted plan to reform Wall Street.

Several times during the interview, Sanders expressed uncertainty over facts, said he couldn’t give a proper answer to a question because he didn’t have all the relevant information, or simply stated, “I don’t know.”

In one exchange, Sanders acknowledged that he wasn’t sure exactly how he intended to break up the big banks, a proposal that has been a centerpiece of his Wall Street reform agenda.

For some political observers, the senator’s difficulty in providing direct answers to some questions reinforced their belief that he lacks a concrete plan to implement his domestic agenda and is ill-prepared to handle the global challenges he would face as president.

“If Hillary [Clinton] gave answers like this to [an editorial] board, she would be crucified,” tweeted Mark Halperin, the Bloomberg television host and co-author of “Game Change.”

Sanders’ remarks drew an onslaught of criticism from the press…

…It wasn’t like Sanders was in enemy territory. The Daily News has been quite favorable to Sanders in the run up to the Empire State’s primary on April 19. The paper has yet to endorse in the Democratic primary.

When Sanders was asked, according to the transcript, if there are particular statues that allow the prosecution of Wall Street executives, he said: “I suspect that there are. Yes.”

CNN:

Bernie Sanders’ interview with the New York Daily News ahead of the state’s primary later this month didn’t go as planned.

The Vermont senator’s April 1 sit down with the paper’s editorial board, a transcript of which was published Monday, showed him having difficulty clearly answering some questions about both foreign and domestic policy, including the implementation of his much-touted plan to reform Wall Street.
Several times during the interview, Sanders expressed uncertainty over facts, said he couldn’t give a proper answer to a question because he didn’t have all the relevant information, or simply stated, “I don’t know.”
In one exchange, Sanders acknowledged that he wasn’t sure exactly how he intended to break up the big banks, a proposal that has been a centerpiece of his Wall Street reform agenda.
For some political observers, the senator’s difficulty in providing direct answers to some questions reinforced their belief that he lacks a concrete plan to implement his domestic agenda and is ill-prepared to handle the global challenges he would face as president.
“If Hillary [Clinton] gave answers like this to [an editorial] board, she would be crucified,” tweeted Mark Halperin, the Bloomberg television host and co-author of “Game Change.”
Sanders’ remarks drew an onslaught of criticism from the press: “Bernie Sanders Admits He Isn’t Sure How to Break Up Big Banks,” Vanity Fair’s headline read. “How Much Does Bernie Sanders Know About Policy?” asked The Atlantic. “This New York Daily News interview was pretty close to a disaster for Bernie Sanders,” The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote.
And on Tuesday night, the Clinton campaign even sent the entire, unedited interview transcript to its own supporters in a fundraising email.
“We’ve said for a long time that this primary is about who’s really going to be able to get things done. And from reading this interview, you get the impression Senator Sanders hasn’t thought very much about that,” the email read.
“In fact, even on his signature issue of breaking up the banks, he’s unable to answer basic questions about how he’d go about doing it, and even seems uncertain whether a president does or doesn’t already have that authority under existing law.”

Sanders won the Wisconsin primary last night, but it’s likely the scrutiny will continue. The questions and demand for specificity will become greater and louder. The press will continue to demand for more information on his back taxes. And if he does become the Democratic nominee, he will undergo even greater scrutiny and will go through the political buzzsaw of being defined and demonized by Republicans. Clinton has already endured that and has the battle scars. Is he ready for that? Based on the staff prep for his Daily News interview, it is a key question.

It’s hard to overstate that this interview wasn’t a good sign: it smacked of the vapid interview results journalists have gotten with Republican Donald Trump when they ask for specifics to explain his slogan And it suggested terrible — almost politically negligent — staff prep.

Washington Monthly’s Nancy LeTourneau:

I have to admit that I was rather stunned by this whole interview. Over the course of the last few months, I have been asking questions about the details of many of Sanders’ proposals. He doesn’t need to provide those in his stump speech. But when these kinds of bold structural changes are the cornerstone of your agenda, I assumed that a great deal of inquiry and thought had gone into reaching the conclusion that they were necessary. Throughout this interview I saw none of that.

Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson:

I started writing this post as an excuse for Bernie Sanders, saying that Sanders wasn’t asked specifically about the Newtown massacre when he said gun manufacturers should be protected from lawsuits. I guess I didn’t want to believe he’d actually say something like this.

But then I read the full transcript of the NY Daily News interview, and yes, he really was asked specifically about that case.

…..This is bad thinking. And it’s striking to contrast this with Sanders’ calls to break up big banks, even though they’re also selling legal products. Why does Bernie Sanders think banks need to be cracked down upon — but not companies that manufacture products intended to kill large numbers of people?

The Atlantic:

There’s little doubting Bernie Sanders’s core political convictions—he’s been saying the same things for decades, with remarkable consistency. But turning convictions into policy is the challenge, and the Vermont senator’s interview with the editorial board of the New York Daily News raises some questions about his policy chops.

Throughout his interview, Sanders seemed taken aback when he was pressed on policy—and not just on the matters that are peripheral to his approach, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or interrogation of detainees, but even on bread-and-butter matters like breaking up the big banks, the Democratic presidential hopeful came across as tentative, unprepared, or unaware.

It’s striking that there hasn’t been more coverage of Sanders’s policy ideas so far during the campaign, even at this late date, with most of the primary season concluded. He’s even acquired a reputation as something of a wonk, the kind of guy who eschews soaring rhetoric for dry nuts and bolts on the stump—and gets people to love him anyway. The gaps uncovered by the Daily News are not just about pragmatism. (There have, of course, been plenty of accusations, not least from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, that Sanders is offering a deeply unrealistic program. He tends to answer that they fail to grasp that he is building a political revolution.) The question here is not how Sanders would enact policies, but what those policies would be. If the Sanders campaign has shied away from deep dives into policy, this interview might be why: The candidate reveals himself as a far defter diagnostician than clinician.

AND:

It’s important for leaders to know what they believe in, and Sanders has been unusually consistent and forthright about that. But Sanders isn’t running for chief ideologue—he’s running for chief executive, and so it’s also important for him to know what policies he would use to turn those beliefs into practice.

The problem in 21st century America, however, is that many on the left and right don’t care about the mechanics about how to enact policies; they care about ideology and purity — and negatively define those who differ from them and/or ask how X policy on the right or Y policy on the left could be enacted. Or they try to discredit those who press for great specificity and ask questions based on nuance rather than the kinds of sympathetic or covertly or overtly p.r. questions asked by right or left radio or cable talkers to those in their political tribe.

Overall? If this doesn’t change, bad campaign prep — and a bad omen if he gets the nomination.

Some reaction on Twitter:

Would be good to know how many people who voted Sanders had read the Daily News interview, but voted for him anyway https://t.co/nKkLs4G9bO

— Renca (@bow227) April 6, 2016

Go here for more blog reaction.

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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